Cutscenes/Cinematics - Bad Storytelling?

[Ironic Pirate]

I don't understand this trend in gaming where passive cut-scenes are bad. When there is important dialogue or story exposition going on, I want to have my full attention on that. Even in Bioshock during the audio diaries and radio communications, I just stopped moving and listened to what was being said. It did work in Bioshock because of the nature of the communication. I hate when games allow you to just walk about or whatever during dialogue (not that all dialogue should be a cut-scene) and story exposition because a well directed cut-scene with good cinematography would be a better experience. The Metal Gear Solid storyline could NOT be told 100% interactively.

Cinematics aren't bad storytelling, but they still aren't always good. Because a game, is, well, a game, if your character is depicted as doing things in cut-scenes that you can't do in-game, then you feel robbed.

I gotta disagree here. Even in a game like Bayonetta where the character really can do so much cool stuff in gameplay, there is a lot of cool stuff that a character can do that just can't be worked into gameplay outside of QTEs. And, not showing that other cool stuff just because it can't be done in gameplay is robbing the audience out of seeing that other cool stuff.

Not sure how it works in Bayonetta, but lets say in a cutscene, your character somersaults over an enemy ninja, and snaps his neck with her feet. In game, all you can basically do is kick, punch, and jump.

That's okay, because for one thing, like in Kung Fu movies, the more awesome something is, the less awesome it is in repetition. Such a detailed attack, that's only situational, wouldn't really work in the gameplay, and it's okay. Besides, it's feasible that your character could do it.

Different example: A character has a sword on their character model the entire game, but you can't use it. Maybe they accidentally got glue on the blade and can't pull it out the scabbard and are too embarrassed to tell anyone, maybe it's a fake sword they bought to impress chicks, regardless you can't use it. It bothered you in the beginning, but by now you're happy with kicking people in the face, because it's fun.

But then, in a cutscene, your character whips out his sword and chops a bunch of ninjas into pieces, and it looks awesome. Thinking the guy finally got all the glue off it, you expect to use it when the cutscene ends, except that you still can't. You can still only kick people in the face, which just doesn't seem as fun anymore.

It's the reverse of Cutscene Incompetence [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence]

 

[gl1koz3]

The dude saying about how it should use the full potential of medium sounds like something to think about. The thing is, the computer is a multi-medium, so you can't make use of ALL of its possibilities to the fullest without coming off as a piece of... art that nobody understands.

From this point, I think true video games died somewhere around the nineties. Now we have the interactive storytelling trend.

 

[Aerowaves]

As long as it doesn't rob you of gameplay and is handled correctly, it can be a perfect way of progressing the story. Let's be honest, in a story, the protagonist very rarely has control of what's around him/her and what he/she experiences as a result, so it's a good way of implementing conditions on the narrative landscape and setting a player up for fixing dat shit.

 

[HK_01]

I very much agree with this. It doesn't matter which way a game tells its story as long as it works and manages to be compelling.

 

[Ranorak]

If video games can't have cut scenes to tell a story.
Movies can't have narrators and intro texts.

 

[badgersprite]

It's not necessarily that cutscenes are inherently bad, it's more that reliance on them just suggests a lack of creativity. "How can we get character X out of this situation? Not through the player's actions; let's have the cutscene do it for them."

There are good cinematics and bad cinematics, and there are good ways of using them and bad ways of using them. Gameplay and story segregation is a huge factor in determining whether it has crossed the line. I know I'm not the only person who dislikes cutscenes that exist solely to show off how badass a character is when they can't do any of the moves shown in the cinematic in actual gameplay. If all your story is contained purely within cutscenes, separate from the player's actions, that is bad video game story telling, or at least lazy.

Put it this way, I love Mass Effect and it's a great game, but imagine how much it would have sucked if all the conversations and cutscenes were predetermined and uninteractive like they are in FFXIII. I don't know about you, but I probably just would have skipped every conversation, instead of listening to every single one over the course of two games.

And that's another point to raise; sticking your story into a cutscene that people are likely to try and skip anyway means people might just miss your story. If they can't skip it, they might get annoyed. This was one of the criticisms of Assassin's Creed. A lot of people who played probably weren't even paying attention to half the story-related things the characters said, because they got bored. Too much exposition. Too slow. Worse, maybe we'd already sat through it all before, so it was just wasting our time.

That's basically all I'm saying. Cutscenes and cinematics aren't automatically bad, nor is there anything inherently wrong with them, but once the method of story telling starts boring players, or alienating them from the experience, then it's a failure of the design. It's the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay that decides a lot of whether they're being used in a good or bad way. One small cutscene or two for about every hour and a half of gameplay isn't going to piss anybody off, especially if they evolve naturally from where you are, or if they're just establishing where you're going or who you're fighting next. See for example, Batman Arkham Asylum.

All I'm really saying is that, if you can't get any of your story across outside of cutscenes (mind you, I'm not counting set pieces within gameplay as cutscenes) then that just comes across to me as uncreative or lazy writing. It's really not that hard to convey aspects of the story without outright shoving them in the player's face with a cinematic. If the writing team can't think of a way, maybe they aren't experimenting enough with the medium.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Different example: A character has a sword on their character model the entire game, but you can't use it. Maybe they accidentally got glue on the blade and can't pull it out the scabbard and are too embarrassed to tell anyone, maybe it's a fake sword they bought to impress chicks, regardless you can't use it. It bothered you in the beginning, but by now you're happy with kicking people in the face, because it's fun.

But then, in a cutscene, your character whips out his sword and chops a bunch of ninjas into pieces, and it looks awesome. Thinking the guy finally got all the glue off it, you expect to use it when the cutscene ends, except that you still can't. You can still only kick people in the face, which just doesn't seem as fun anymore.

It's the reverse of Cutscene Incompetence [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence]

So, I guess we then agree in the end. Yeah, if your character has a weapon or something that they only use in cut-scenes then that's some bullshit. Bayonetta has so many different combos and moves and weapons to use in-game and it's really awesome. And, Bayonetta has those bad-ass tightly choreographed cut-scenes that obviously wouldn't work in any kind of gameplay outside of QTEs.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip.

im feeling lazy right now but i do agree with you, i think that, whatever the game is going for (relies heavily on good passionate cutscenes to get the main conflict of the stories) or vise versa, if it sticks with it and does it well, it shouldn't matter how much it does or doesn't do something, just that it does it well.

 

[cloudcover]

I don't understand this trend in gaming where passive cut-scenes are bad. When there is important dialogue or story exposition going on, I want to have my full attention on that. Even in Bioshock during the audio diaries and radio communications, I just stopped moving and listened to what was being said. It did work in Bioshock because of the nature of the communication. I hate when games allow you to just walk about or whatever during dialogue (not that all dialogue should be a cut-scene) and story exposition because a well directed cut-scene with good cinematography would be a better experience. The Metal Gear Solid storyline could NOT be told 100% interactively.

Game developers should use any method they can to make the experience as enjoyable as possible. However it's ironic that in what we all agree is an "interactive medium" they try and tell you what you want more then in others. This may be due to an unexpected advantage of the other media. When I watch the Transformers movie I watch most of it in fast forward. Some of you might say having a narrator is bad storytelling (in lieu with the theme of this post) but I am indifferent. I bought the DVD, I payed my money and if I want to skip all that crap and just watch the fight scenes I should be able to. The same rules MUST apply to games, by all means have great stories with amazing voice actors and rich characters but when I play the game I should be free to ignore it all and get on with the game...
To summarize Cutscene Cinematics are fine, just as long as there is a skip button. And this would make both me and Phoenix happy, he gets his cutscenes and I get none.

 

[Serenegoose]

My biggest problem with cutscenes as used in videogames is that they're only 50% used to tell a story. The other 50% is to do cool things with your characters that you then do not let the player ever replicate. In essence, the most fun looking bits of games with extensive cutscenes always end up with you not being able to do them. That doesn't fly with me. Anything my character does in a cutscene I should already be able to do, or should be able to do immediately afterwards. If my character kicks down a door and blats the mooks in the next room with precision headshots - but in the regular game I can't even open doors - something is seriously wrong with the way you're conveying the story.

 

[Johann Goethe]

I've got nothing against games trying to be cinematic, since to have a cinematic story has essentially replaced being operatic - i.e. telling a story on a wide scale, albeit with more set pieces thrown in and with a good dose of crazy awesome. I do have a problem with cutscenes when they show your character doing loads of cool shit that you'll never ever come close to replicating. See Final Fantasy XIII, or rather the first trailer for it, that promised me acrobatic whizz-bang fun and instead led me to walk down corridors for at least 15 hours.

Kingdom Hearts II's Reaction Commands can qualify as being cinematic within gameplay; there you were cleaving buildings in half and using the debris as cannon-fire, which was actually more insane than any cutscene in the game. OK, it was a QTE, but y'know: baby steps.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Game developers should use any method they can to make the experience as enjoyable as possible. However it's ironic that in what we all agree is an "interactive medium" they try and tell you what you want more then in others. This may be due to an unexpected advantage of the other media. When I watch the Transformers movie I watch most of it in fast forward. Some of you might say having a narrator is bad storytelling (in lieu with the theme of this post) but I am indifferent. I bought the DVD, I payed my money and if I want to skip all that crap and just watch the fight scenes I should be able to. The same rules MUST apply to games, by all means have great stories with amazing voice actors and rich characters but when I play the game I should be free to ignore it all and get on with the game...
To summarize Cutscene Cinematics are fine, just as long as there is a skip button. And this would make both me and Phoenix happy, he gets his cutscenes and I get none.

Yes, I definitely agree that cut-scenes SHOULD ALWAYS have a skip option because when I'm playing through on a 2nd playthrough, I don't want to sit through even a 1 or 2 minute cut-scene let alone 10 or 20 minute cut-scene, I usually just wanna play the game since I know the story.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Whether you like them or not, games like COD have proved that you don't need cutscenes to provide storytelling. I hate cutscenes. They're boring, uninteresting and I just end up skipping them.

 

[brodie21]

cutscenes are ok if used in moderation. what i think yahtzee is pointing to is MGS4 practically making a movie with the amount of cutscenes that are in it. developers need to use both cutscenes and gameplay to tell a story, not just cutscenes, otherwise its just a slightly interactive movie

 

[Delock]

Games have to at the very least tell the story through the game play, whether this means how the character moves, fights, navigates the environment around them, etc. or how the gameplay sections match the tone of the overall feeling. Cutscenes aren't bad, and in fact can be great, so long as 1. They are pause/skippable 2. They don't interrupt every five minutes of gameplay (this fucking includes taking the camera away to show me that a door has opened or that enemies have entere the room, even if you didn't "cut away" to do so.

Cutscenes can often be a great way to tell a story in a way that makes the dialogue or action feel more pronounced than doing it in gameplay. Example: every fight and talk in a cutscene always seems to be 100 times more important/interesting to watch/listen to than two characters turning their head to talk while the player is trying to force them to run at full speed to the next area, barely listening to a lot of what they say if the player is under fire.

That being said, there's a limit. MGS4, while it did do a lot right IMO, the cutscenes definitely got annoying at times. Look, I'm a JRPG fan, and this still got to me.

As for the arguement of "characters in cutscenes doing cool shit that not only could the game developers not easily program in, but probably would be too difficult in gameplay to pull off so they're insanely cool" vs "everything I see should be performable arguement" I'll take both sides. There should never be too big of a divide between what the character is in cutscenes and what they are in games, but I'm not opposed to seeing them pull off the ridiculous in certain games, so long as it does indeed get me to drop my jaw, and the characters can at least pull a supermove out their ass during gameplay.

Whether you like them or not, games like COD have proved that you don't need cutscenes to provide storytelling. I hate cutscenes. They're boring, uninteresting and I just end up skipping them.

Not really, they provide great immersion rather than storytelling, and they also used cutscenes (at least the MW ones that everyone parades around as being the representation of COD these days). They happened to also use the worse technique of not cutting away, which while you don't really enter a cutscene, you still can't do shit and have to watch the sequence the developers wanted you to see anyways. What little story the tell through gameplay falls into the "distracting me while I shoot people/run" category. The storytelling they get across is rather weak, with none of those stories ever having a plot that really stuck with me or got me really involved.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Not really, they provide great immersion rather than storytelling, and they also used cutscenes (at least the MW ones that everyone parades around as being the representation of COD these days). They happened to also use the worse technique of not cutting away, which while you don't really enter a cutscene, you still can't do shit and have to watch the sequence the developers wanted you to see anyways. What little story the tell through gameplay falls into the "distracting me while I shoot people/run" category. The storytelling they get across is rather weak, with none of those stories ever having a plot that really stuck with me or got me really involved.

So whenever you're not in a cutscene your only thought is 'I need to be shooting and running, everything else is a distraction'?

And I guess the loading screens in the new Call of Duty games could be considered cutscene, but not in your traditional way. For me, having user-interactive, in-play scripted scenes is far more effective more immersion that cutting away to a rendered video of character stood around talking. It totally kills all immersion.

 

[Delock]

Not really, they provide great immersion rather than storytelling, and they also used cutscenes (at least the MW ones that everyone parades around as being the representation of COD these days). They happened to also use the worse technique of not cutting away, which while you don't really enter a cutscene, you still can't do shit and have to watch the sequence the developers wanted you to see anyways. What little story the tell through gameplay falls into the "distracting me while I shoot people/run" category. The storytelling they get across is rather weak, with none of those stories ever having a plot that really stuck with me or got me really involved.

So whenever you're not in a cutscene your only thought is 'I need to be shooting and running, everything else is a distraction'?

And I guess the loading screens in the new Call of Duty games could be considered cutscene, but not in your traditional way. For me, having user-interactive, in-play scripted scenes is far more effective more immersion that cutting away to a rendered video of character stood around talking. It totally kills all immersion.

Yes, that's exactly what happens. I suddenly become brain dead and can't listen to the talks between people at all when I'm given control. That's why I love SotC. /sarcasm

Of course not! However, look at most dialogue outside of cutscenes and you'll see why it mostly loses it's importance. One liners, repitition of shit I already know (mostly after a cutscene ends), characters interacting in order to build the atmosphere (such as one complaining about having a problem with the vehicle as they repair it, or just taking to each other about how they're currently feeling), or just the horrible amount of short lines that are repeated over and over again in battle.

However, with Call of Duty games, yes, because that's what the fucking game is all about. Most of the game is just running and shooting, and most of the dialogue is telling me where to run and shoot. Why? Because they really don't give a shit about story in the game, since you mostly play as a faceless soldier who just mindlessly obeys orders. You're never asked to contemplate the meaning of the conflict in any part of the game, nor are you given any real information that's shocking outside of the scripted scenes that take away control of your character anyways, so they might as well be cutscenes, especially when there's the rough transition between me playing and having control wrenched from me to sit around and WATCH a group talk amongst themselves.

There wasn't a single one where in the middle of my gameplay session, the person over the radio said something that I stopped for a moment and asked "Wait, what?!" only to realize that they were the traitor (the only thing that really came close was in MW2 where at the very end of a level one of the characters says something that no one comments on, yet felt extremely out of place. It is never fucking mentioned again, and the traitor turns out to be someone different). No, that was reserved for the sequences where I had no control and got to watch through the camera attached to my head as the scene unfolded, unable to do anything, breaking the immersion completely since I'm now struggling to make my character get up, shoot, or do something rather than just lie there.

And frankly, given that I could see the mission objectives, I didn't need some idiot redshirt to yell at me to go there, nor did I need to hear him distract, yes DISTRACT me when bullets are flying right nearby my head. Adrenaline has kicked in already to deal with the situation, and it doesn't give a flying fuck about what you're complaining about Cpt. Imgonnadie.

Yes there are games where story is told during gameplay, such as sequences in Alan Wake, in which really do feel like listening, as well as certain FPSs where the chatter is important and I do listen in on it, as it does tell the story well (example: Republic Commando. Yes there were cutscenes, but only at the beginning of the missions. For every other story telling element, which ended up being an actual story, in-game dialogue and visuals were used. Other FPSs I can say also did a lot of this were Bioshock and the Darkness, both of which still contained cutscenes, but they also did a great job of telling a story through gameplay).

I will say that user interaction in story scenes is something I fully support, but at times, you also have those ones were you basically are just waiting for a character to finish talking so you can advance (this comes up heavily in second playthroughs).

 

[Geekosaurus]

Not really, they provide great immersion rather than storytelling, and they also used cutscenes (at least the MW ones that everyone parades around as being the representation of COD these days). They happened to also use the worse technique of not cutting away, which while you don't really enter a cutscene, you still can't do shit and have to watch the sequence the developers wanted you to see anyways. What little story the tell through gameplay falls into the "distracting me while I shoot people/run" category. The storytelling they get across is rather weak, with none of those stories ever having a plot that really stuck with me or got me really involved.

So whenever you're not in a cutscene your only thought is 'I need to be shooting and running, everything else is a distraction'?

And I guess the loading screens in the new Call of Duty games could be considered cutscene, but not in your traditional way. For me, having user-interactive, in-play scripted scenes is far more effective more immersion that cutting away to a rendered video of character stood around talking. It totally kills all immersion.

Yes, that's exactly what happens. I suddenly become brain dead and can't listen to the talks between people at all when I'm given control. That's why I love SotC. /sarcasm

Of course not! However, look at most dialogue outside of cutscenes and you'll see why it mostly loses it's importance. One liners, repitition of shit I already know (mostly after a cutscene ends), characters interacting in order to build the atmosphere (such as one complaining about having a problem with the vehicle as they repair it, or just taking to each other about how they're currently feeling), or just the horrible amount of short lines that are repeated over and over again in battle.

However, with Call of Duty games, yes, because that's what the fucking game is all about. Most of the game is just running and shooting, and most of the dialogue is telling me where to run and shoot. Why? Because they really don't give a shit about story in the game, since you mostly play as a faceless soldier who just mindlessly obeys orders. You're never asked to contemplate the meaning of the conflict in any part of the game, nor are you given any real information that's shocking outside of the scripted scenes that take away control of your character anyways, so they might as well be cutscenes, especially when there's the rough transition between me playing and having control wrenched from me to sit around and WATCH a group talk amongst themselves.

There wasn't a single one where in the middle of my gameplay session, the person over the radio said something that I stopped for a moment and asked "Wait, what?!" only to realize that they were the traitor (the only thing that really came close was in MW2 where at the very end of a level one of the characters says something that no one comments on, yet felt extremely out of place. It is never fucking mentioned again, and the traitor turns out to be someone different). No, that was reserved for the sequences where I had no control and got to watch through the camera attached to my head as the scene unfolded, unable to do anything, breaking the immersion completely since I'm now struggling to make my character get up, shoot, or do something rather than just lie there.

And frankly, given that I could see the mission objectives, I didn't need some idiot redshirt to yell at me to go there, nor did I need to hear him distract, yes DISTRACT me when bullets are flying right nearby my head. Adrenaline has kicked in already to deal with the situation, and it doesn't give a flying fuck about what you're complaining about Cpt. Imgonnadie.

Yes there are games where story is told during gameplay, such as sequences in Alan Wake, in which really do feel like listening, as well as certain FPSs where the chatter is important and I do listen in on it, as it does tell the story well (example: Republic Commando. Yes there were cutscenes, but only at the beginning of the missions. For every other story telling element, which ended up being an actual story, in-game dialogue and visuals were used. Other FPSs I can say also did a lot of this were Bioshock and the Darkness, both of which still contained cutscenes, but they also did a great job of telling a story through gameplay).

I will say that user interaction in story scenes is something I fully support, but at times, you also have those ones were you basically are just waiting for a character to finish talking so you can advance (this comes up heavily in second playthroughs).

Too long; didn't read. Ok, so I skimmed it.

It seems to me that you associate between two different types of games. Story games and shooting games. I fully believe that a shooting game can have a decent story; clichéd and predictable maybe, but decent nonetheless. And it doesn't need to use disruptive, moment-killing, un-interactive cut scenes to do that.

I'm aware that sometimes time has to be taken out to explain what's going on and expand the plot, but I'd much rather do that in a COD-style 'I can sit here and more my head around but I can't move' in-game scripted event, rather than taking me completely out of the game to show me a short clip of rendered footage that I'll no doubt just skip.

I fully understand why we need cutscenes, and what they can bring to a game in terms of story development, I just think that with the technology now available we can be so much more creative when it comes to story telling.

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

I would have to very much agree. Cinematics being used to progress the story isn't a bad thing, it allows you to focus on what's happening in the narrative, instead of what your ingame objective is. Without cinematics I think a lot of gamers would fail to see the forest behind the trees so to speak.

Yes, completely agreed. I like cutscenes when they do more than faff about and fill in some much needed story.